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Singletrack: Instrumentalist Joel Styzens

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Soundtracking "Bicycle Notes," an animated digital short

by:

Joel Styzens

“A curious and jaunty penny-farthing sets out across a rolling planet on a musical outer-space adventure. This fantasy story is the result of an experimentation between art and music, pursuing an approximation of symbols that aims to show the power of music on people's feelings through a surrealistic story with a positive idea.”—Fernanda Torres, animator

I. The SoundtrackAnimator and architect Fernanda Torres of Bogota, Colombia, approached me about composing a soundtrack for her digital short after hearing my instrumental guitar-and-cello album, “Relax Your Ears.” We collaborated back and forth via the Internet for about one year. After seeing Fernanda’s drawings, I had an idea of the mood I wanted to capture—the main focus being the personality of the bicycle. Her animation was going have a darker, warmer, “sepia” tone, so I decided to write and record only with actual, acoustic instruments instead of electronic samples. I started with the hammered dulcimer; with it I knew I could create a light, percussive playfulness that seemed fitting.

All of a sudden, the melody just popped out. I knew instantly: that's it!

I like to start out with improvisation and thinking about textures as opposed to sitting down with staff paper and music theory. For Bicycle Notes I set the computer monitor in front of my dulcimer and stared at the bicycle animation, trying out notes by ear. All of a sudden, the melody just popped out. I knew instantly: that's it! Thinking I could capture even more playfulness from the bicycle, I layered a glockenspiel over the dulcimer melody.

I wanted another section of music to get away from the train-like rhythm of the dulcimer and percussion—something that had more space, more breath. A 3/4-time waltz feel offered the contrast and sway I needed. I introduced longer, more flowing textures—piano, sweeping brushes on a snare drum, ambient guitar swells.

As Fernanda worked on parts of the actual animation, she sent me animatics—videos of the raw polygon designs, basic movements and shapes of the environments. From these I knew I needed something that could offer a more ambient wash of tone and sustain to capture the outer-space environment. The bowed harmonics and low drones of a cello offered just the thing.

II. The Sound Effects

I tried to mimic the talking of people inside the houses with a cuíca, a Brazilian/African friction drum.

My first priority was to map out all the sounds I needed to create: the blinking “eyelash,” a bike seat, the bike bell and the snoring sounds of the city-planet. After several “performances,” an old pair of scissors on my desk had just the right squeak for eye-blinking. The bike seat was more difficult. After many failed attempts, I went to the storage room and recorded a bunch of samples, imported them into Pro Tools. The final sound effect? Just me shaking a real bike!

The most difficult sound effect to create was the snoring of the city-planet. Eventually I took a similar approach to the bike seat: I watched the animation, mimicked the city-planet’s mouth movement with my own, and snarled away. With a little added distortion, it worked great. The sounds of the city itself are represented by clanging glass bottles from my liquor cabinet. I tried to mimic the talking of people inside the houses with a cuíca, a Brazilian/African friction drum. My brilliant cellist friend, Sophie Webber, added another layer to the speech mimicry.

The process of collaboration between Fernanda and me was very interesting, a back-and-forth exchange where each of us would create little parts and send them via email or Skype. With each exchange, we’d inspire each other for the next little part. Looking back it's hard to know exactly who inspired what. It was an organic and natural way of collaborating—certain musical choices I made inspired Fernanda’s animation, and certain things she animated inspired me to make new choices with the music.

Styzens has been featured on National Public Radio and in such publications as Time Out, the Hearing Times, and the Chicago Tribune. He continues to compose music for a wide range of projects, including film, animation, television and his own ensemble. He is a full-time faculty member at Chicago’s renowned Old Town School of Folk Music and runs the Chicago Tinnitus Support Group as well as his label, A-Sharp Records.

Fernanda Torres was born in Bogota, Colombia. At the age of 23 she discovered her passion for architecture and music, two expressions of art that she continues to pursue along with her animation. In 2007 she moved to England and fell in love with 3-D animation. She connected animation to architecture and design, creating new directions for her work.

Working from London the idea for Bicycle Notes, her first short film, was born. Torres collaborated via Skype with Joel Styzens on the soundtrack. After months of hard work Fernanda moved to New York and then Chicago to finish the music with Styzens.

Torres continues her work as an architect incorporating elements of animation into her projects and continues to work with Styzens on sound design.

"Singletrack" is CAR's Artist Story for Chicago performers in which songwriters, bands, playwrights, actors and writers discuss the creation of a recorded work alongside audio or video clips of the performance. To submit your song for consideration, please email our researchers.